CAIRO, February 3, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – Muslim imams and scholars across the world were united Friday, February 3, in pressing for an apology over the blasphemous cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) published by European newspapers, calling for enacting legislations to protect religious sanctities and symbols as thousands of Muslims took to the streets in protest of the insulting caricatures.

"The Muslim nation must get angry over insults directed against its faith and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and must not accept these affronts under any circumstances," prominent Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi told prayers during the Friday sermon in Doha.

Last September, Denmark's Jyllands-Posten published twelve drawings that included portrayals of a man assumed to be the Prophet wearing a time-bomb shaped turban and showed him as a knife-wielding nomad flanked by shrouded women.

Several European newspapers, in the name of freedom of the press, reprinted some or all of the blasphemous cartoons, including the French daily France-Soir and Germany's Die Welt.

Thousands of Bangladeshi Muslims march during a protest over the cartoons in the capital Dakha (Reuters).

Qaradawi called for economic and political boycott of countries that printed the insulting drawings.

"It is a fundamental duty of the Muslim nation to boycott goods of those who dared to insult Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)."

"The Muslim governments should also withdraw their ambassadors from Denmark and shut down its embassies on their territories as part of a political boycott."

The Muslim scholar also called for issuing legislations to protect prophets and religious sanctities against any form of insults.

"The Muslim countries and people should pressure the international bodies to issue these laws."

"They should also pressure newspapers that insulted Muslims to apologize.

"Danish Muslims should also be allowed to publish articles in the newspapers for a whole month to defend our Prophet."

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Friday he could not apologize for the publication of the cartoons, Reuters reported.

"A Danish government can never apologize on behalf of a free and independent newspaper," Rasmussen told reporters after an hour-long meeting with 76 foreign diplomats.

Commenting on a boycott of Danish goods in Muslim countries, Rasmussen said defending freedom was more important than defending his country's business interests.

Syrians continued their protests. (Reuters)

Preacher Saleh bin Humaid, who gave the Friday sermon at the Grand Mosque in the holy city of Makkah, said a new spirit of defiance has been breathed among Muslims after the worldwide protests over the cartoons.

"A great new spirit is flowing through the body of the Islamic nation ... this world can no longer ignore this nation and its feelings," he was quoted as saying in a televised sermon by Reuters.

"The nation has fought to back its Prophet Muhammad in recent days. It is the right of every Muslim to show joy at this defense of our beloved Prophet."

Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador from Denmark last month, saying the Danish government had not done enough to assuage anger over the drawings.

Jordanians protest the cartoons. (Reuters)

The reproduction of the insulting caricatures has triggered massive fury across the Muslim world, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Thousands of angry Muslims demonstrated at Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine, after Friday prayers. Demonstrators shouted slogans against Denmark, Norway and France, some of the countries in which the offending cartoons have been published.

In Iraq, hundreds of Iraqis after Friday prayers burnt flags and products of Denmark and Norway in protest against the insulting drawings.

"There is only one God ... and Mohammed is his prophet," chanted nearly 250 protesting Iraqis in Fallujah.

In Egypt's Al Azhar Mosque, hundreds of Egyptian worshippers protested the drawings after the Friday prayers, calling for a boycott of products of European countries that produced the blasphemous cartoons.

The protestors carried banners calling on Arab and Islamic countries to withdraw ambassadors from Denmark and other countries that reprinted the drawings.

"They insulted Prophet Muhammad and a billion of Muslims," one of the female protestors told IslamOnline.net.

"These insults contradict with their claims of free thinking and thought they have long propagated," she added, waving a banner reading "No to Western Racism".

Massive protests were also staged in other Egyptian governorates in protest of the drawings.

In the coastal city of Alexandria, thousands of Egyptians took to the streets after Friday prayers, condemning the anti-Prophet campaigns in the West. The demonstrators also burnt flags of Denmark and other countries that printed the cartoons.

In Turkey, Turkish protestors denounced the blasphemous cartoons and burnt the French and Danish flags.

In the country's biggest city Istanbul, some 200 protestors laid a black wreath in front of the Danish consulate in the city's European side and pelted the consulate's signboard with eggs.

"We warn you, do not play with our patience," read banners carried by members of the group, watched closely by riot police.

In Diyarbakir, the regional capital of the mainly Kurdish southeast, some 70 people gathered in front of the city's main mosque, chanting slogans against European countries where newspapers have published the offending cartoons.

In Pakistan, hundreds of protestors in major cities burned flags and chanted "Death to Denmark, France and Norway".

In East African countries, Muslims vented outrage during and after Friday prayers at the insulting cartoons, AFP said.

In mosques on Tanzania's overwhelmingly Muslim Zanzibar archipelago and in predominantly Muslim Somalia, imams and worshippers denounced the drawings as offensive and insulting attacks by western media on Islam and Muslims.

"The enemies of Islam are using editors to publish articles to tarnish Islam and insult the prophet," Abdullah Hussein, the imam at the main Jibril Mosque in Stone Town, told the faithful congregation.

In Mogadishu, Somalia, several hundred Muslims protested against the cartoons.

"What is the value of living when your prophet is insulted by a dirty journalist paid to be a religious extremist?" asked protestor Ahmed Sheikh Mukhtar. "We hate western journalists."